


The fate of the weak

by stele3



Series: A slave named Ani [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Child Death, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, F/M, Inappropriate Use of the Force, M/M, Masochism, Multi, POV Second Person, Past Brainwashing, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Underage, Polyamory, Self-Harm, Sub Drop, Submissive Kylo Ren, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, like the most unreliable of narrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5710798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stele3/pseuds/stele3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(PLEASE NOTE: there is no underage or rape in the events this story, but a past non-sexual Dom/sub relationship between an adult and a child is referenced several times.)</p><p> </p><p>They put you on an uninhabited desert moon and leave you there. Recalling the history of your family, you can appreciate the aptness of this choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kylo

They put you on an uninhabited desert island on an uninhabited ocean moon and leave you there. 

Recalling the history of your family, you can appreciate the aptness of this choice.

The island is a full day’s walk from one side to the other, traveling with the direction of the sun, and three days’ walk in the perpendicular direction. The flora and fauna are unrecognizable to you: in the inner part of the island are trees with round, red leaves and pale bulbous trunks that shade rocky expanses, while the beaches slope with fine orange sand. In all directions, the horizon is blue, clear water. 

On a small hilly rise in one corner of the island sits a hastily-constructed stone house that consists of three rooms. 

This, the new Republic deems, is suitable punishment for you.

-o-

On the twenty-eighth day of your captivity--if it could really be called that: you can move about the island freely, and there is even a small boat if you wished to brave your own seasickness--you resolve to destroy yourself. You have already smashed the droid attendants sent to keep you alive; but the next day three more dropped from the sky. You have refused any food they offered and the lack of hunger tells you that sometime in the haze after your surrender a nutrient-dispenser was placed somewhere in your body.

You have spent the morning trying to find it and dig it out with a makeshift knife fashioned from droid parts, panting with relief as the pain sharpens your mind and drives out other thoughts. A fool’s mission, which means you must take more direct action. You will not be a trophy to the Republic; you will not grow old and feeble for their self-righteous amusement. Death is preferable to another second alone with the dreck of your own thoughts, and is it not what you deserve? What you are _owed_? You failed your Master. If the Republic will not let you have a worthy end, then you will take it for yourself.

No sooner has resolution hardened your grip on the blade, however, than doubt creeps in. You waver, you rough trousers already streaked with your blood. Might death not be the greater cowardice? Your Master is dead--and yet not: you can still hear Him in your thoughts, so strong that you would think it a ghost if the Sith had such things--but so long as you live you might still fulfill the duties of your service. You can endure the passing years, patiently waiting for a slip, the rise of a new Order, an opportunity--but what difference would that make? Your Master will not be there to see it.

Indecision crumples you and in the stillness you hear the familiar whisper in your mind. _Such a weak, pathetic creature. Always grasping for a stronger hand. What can you hope to achieve without me?_

Baring your teeth, you slash once more at the top of your thigh, scoring a long thin cut across the small, old white ones already there, before casting the knife away from you.

-o-

On the twenty-ninth day, a ship arrives.


	2. Poe

It isn’t her, of course.

It’s Poe fucking Dameron, with his tousled curls and wry mouth. Some tiny echo of your teenaged crush wants to run your hands through your own hair to straighten it; instead you stand on the hill in front of your prison home and shade your eyes, watching as Dameron climbs out of his cockpit and drops to the ground with the ease of practice. His droid, you note, stays in the ship; likely to prevent you from killing his owner and making an escape.

Out of respect to your teenaged self, you decide not to immediately choke the man.

You regret that decision when Dameron fairly swaggers up to you with a box tucked under one arm and smiles. “Hi. Ben, right? I hope you’re hungry, I brought dinner.”

He tosses a fruit of some kind. You allow it to splat on the rocks at your feet. “What do you want?” Your voice is a dry rasp in your throat, hoarse with disuse.

“Well, I’d like it if you didn’t waste my presents. That was a perfectly good candanha, fresh-picked.”

“Who sent you?”

“No one,” he says, and he isn’t lying. “Come on.”

He goes right into the pathetic little hovel that has been your home for the last twenty-nine days and acts like he doesn’t see the old and fresh blood on the floor and your clothes, the healing cuts on your arms and legs. He does take out a fruit slicer instead of a knife. “Have you ever had candanha prepared the Yavin way?”

You stand in the door, watching as Dameron takes out other food items and cooking implements. “No.”

“They’re not native to the system, but they were introduced about two hundred years ago. Come here, sit down.” There’s only one chair in the front room, right next to the table. Dameron moves away from it in invitation; you slowly step over to it and sits. You've been asleep for two days, you've lost too much blood over the last few weeks, and the edges of your vision are fuzzy. Standing would be a foolish grasp at pride; that is why you sit.

Dameron smiles at him. It is the kind of smile that recruits young pilots. You are not that much younger than Dameron, but you can’t remember the last time that someone genuinely smiled at you and you are not immune. “At first,” he continues and it takes you a moment to recall the topic, “they were invasive. They grow on vines, see?”

He hefts one of the fist-sized fruit, tugging at the green sprout attached to its stem before dropping it into the fruit slicer. A sweet smell fills the room and your mouth unwillingly waters.

“That first year the vines covered _everything_. Buildings, fences, signs--we used to joke that if you stood still long enough the candanha vines would wrap around your ankles and pretty soon you’d be, well, a walking vine. But _then_ \--then someone, some _genius_ figured out that if you deliberately bred the plants--see, up until now the only thing the vines gave were these little berries that were usually pretty sour and not something you wanted to eat. But then someone bred the plants for larger fruit and they turned _sweet_. Here, try it.”

He holds out a slice. It smells so sweet; you can see the juice gathered on one edge of the skin. _A Sith never denies his own desire_ , your Master’s voice says, and so you reach out.

“Ah.” Dameron withdraws the treat slightly, looking at your hand with a frown. Your fingers are black with dried blood, grease, and dirt.

“Here,” Dameron says, and holds out the slice of fruit.

That is...unexpected. You would not have thought your captors would take this approach--but then you realize, no. No they haven’t. No one sent this man. He came of his own will. Once, Ben Solo would have killed for this kind of attention from Poe Dameron. Once, Ben Solo _did_ kill for this kind of attention.

Leaning forward, you take the fruit in your mouth. You half-expect Dameron to take the opportunity to rub a thumb over your lips or some other cheap artifice; but he merely smiles again and turns back to his fruit. The taste is...bright and sweet and so, so distracting. A bright blur of sensation after twenty-nine days of deprivation.

You chew slowly, savoring the flavor, before you swallow and ask, “What are you doing?”

Again, Dameron defies your expectations and does not play dumb. He merely pauses in his food preparation and regards you with a steady, heavy-lidded gaze. “I was worried about you,” he says at length.

“Were you.” Rising from the table and fighting an accompanying headrush, you use your height to tower over him. “And so you came here, to feed me sweet fruit and offer me a new Master.”

Dameron’s eyebrows rise, though he does not look at all discomfited at having to tilt his head back. “Uh, no, actually. That’d be...pretty unethical of me, don’t you think?”

You don't follow the meaning of that so instead you refocus. “I tortured you, once.” You let the thinnest sliver of your mind lash around Dameron’s throat as a reminder and smirk to see the man swallow convulsively. “I killed your friends. Do not presume to tell me that you are here out of kindness.”

Dameron meets your eye and says, every word carefully enunciated, “I am here. Out of kindness. To your mother.”

The shattered remains of the dishware rattle on the floor where you left them last week. _You have no mother_ , your Master whispers in your ear. “I have no mother.”

Dameron’s mouth quirks. “Everyone has a mother. Mine was an X-wing pilot--guess you could say I took after her.”

“Shara Bey,” you murmur before you can catch yourself. That is a memory that belongs to Ben Solo; it has no place in your mind.

The light of a thousand beams alights on Dameron’s face. “You knew her? Wait, of course you knew her, she worked with your mother all the time. What was she like?”

He looks at you so hungrily, the grey of his years momentarily dropping away to reveal the aching boy beneath.

“Dead,” you spit and turn away.

-o-

You expect Dameron to depart after that, but instead he leaves smoked fruit on the counter and beds down outside under the stars in a makeshift pallet with a peaked roof overhead.

You go to your small bed in your small bedroom and lie there staring at the ceiling. Should you kill Dameron? No, that would be wasting an opportunity at escape; you should take him prisoner and convince the droid, who seems overly-attached, to let you off-planet in exchange for its owner’s life. Will that work? No, the X-wing cockpit isn't large enough for two. You could take Dameron hostage and demand a shuttle; there must be observer droids in low orbit if Dameron arrived so soon after your--after the decision you wrestled with yesterday. But even if you escaped, where would you go?

At some point you must fall asleep because you wake later, covered in sweat with the sound of an infant’s cries in your ears and Dameron’s hands on your shoulders.

“Ben! _Ben_! You’re dreaming, wake up!”

You jerk away, shoving Dameron back from you with the Force. He tumbles onto the floor; but in the bright reflection of the planet he looks worried rather than frightened. He lifts his hands as if you are the one who is afraid. “You were asleep. You were _screaming_.”

Salt rolls across your tongue--sweat or tears, you do not know. The crying in your ears goes on and you reach out blindly, dragging Dameron back to you with hands and mind.

Dameron fetches up hard against you but not hard enough. You drag his arm up--with your hand or the Force, you don’t even know--and push Dameron’s hand into your hair. “You know,” you croak. Your voice sounds very far away. You can hear her screaming. It is unbearable. “You were there, back then. Please. _Please_.”

For an awful moment Dameron is limp in your grasp...but then he hardens, his hand forming a fist in your hair and his body shifting to crowd forward. “I know. I have you.”

He drags you down on the bed by your hair. It’s not the same, not like your Master--and that thought is enough to bring the voice back in your mind. _Already so desperate for another, my young apprentice? I am not surprised. You would grasp at any hand to fill what you lack. Or any_ body _._

The shame that swells is almost enough to make you push Dameron away again, but then there’s a hand on your throat and everything narrows to that. It doesn’t even _hurt_ , Dameron is straddling your body but carefully puts no weight behind his grip, and it’s still enough to drive the dream from your mind.

“What do you want?” Dameron asks. In the dark his eyes and hair are inky black. “What do you like?”

You know what he means-- _the crudeness of bodies_ , your Master’s voice sneers--but your own experience could fill a thimble and you doubt that would go over well at the moment. What can you say? What can this man even give you, within the limits of flesh?

Dameron’s hand slackens and that’s enough to send you to the edge of panic. You clamp down, forcing those fingers to tighten until your hair, grown long and matted with negligence, pulls at your scalp. “Please don’t ask,” you beg.

You can feel the moment Dameron commits. It’s foolish of him to even hesitate: Kylo, Knight of Ren, could kill him at any moment. You both know this to be so. Yet for a breath he hovers, his hands holding but gentle, as if you are something he could actually break.

Then his hands tighten and it is like the burst of sweet fruit on a dry tongue. It is not enough, not nearly the total control of your Master or like _her_ , but it is more than a knife digging into your leg and the drag of your own nails.

It is...different. Your body is accustomed to violence but not in the places or ways that Poe Dameron applies them--carefully, still so careful and you would Force the issue if you were not so desperately chasing that familiar emptiness.

You find only a pale copy but other things come with it, wrapped up in the crude bodily mechanics that your Master had so disparaged. The strange, burning pleasure of being filled. The loose yet steady hand at your throat, so much warmer than a choke from empty air. Dameron is not a large man but he has the thick, calloused fingers and muscular body of a soldier, and it is a sick, guilty thrill to feel his thrusts grow harder, to hear the slap of skin as he takes his satisfaction from your body.

“Good,” he grunts, “good boy, take it,” while you press your throat against Dameron’s hand and strain to follow his command.

-o-

Morning is...difficult. Dameron wants to lie in your bed and...pet your hair, or something sentimental.

You drive himself up and away, groping for clothes. Your body is a mess of scars, too thick in many places from disuse and too thin in others from the same. It displeases you now to think of Dameron touching it, even under cover of night.

“Hey.” Dameron sits up, a frown on his face. It is unnatural: his mouth is made for smiling, and for leaving the bite marks that dot the backs of your shoulders. “You’re shaking.”

You grit your teeth and speak through them. “I do not. Need. Your help.”

Dameron must disagree, because he decides to _hover_ all morning, making more food and fetching a pillow from his tent-- _tent_ , that’s right, it’s called a tent, another word that Ben knew and Kylo Ren had no use for--after you fail to hide a wince when you sit down.

You bat the offending cushion from his hand, scowling. “I am not _weak_.” You've almost stopped shakingr.

That finally cracks Dameron’s patience and he throws his hands up. “For Yave’s sake, fine! Fine! Pardon me if I like a little aftercare. Who the hell have you been with before this, anyway, ‘cause I kinda wanna punch that person in the face.”

“You already killed Him,” you snap. Dameron hadn’t done the deed personally, of course, but he’d been part of the assault.

For a moment Dameron stares, but then he collects himself, nodding. “Right. Right, of course, your master.” You frown, but at the audible lack of honorifics and Dameron’s thoughtful expression. “Well, I already hated Snoke for a lot of things, guess this ain’t anything new. How long were you his--? I mean, you don’t have to answer if--”

“Nineteen years,” you respond with stiff pride. You were a loyal disciple, for all that he’d failed your Master when it counted.

This time Dameron does not collect himself. He stares and he stares and he is very still. Frowning, you skim across his mind and instantly recoil. “ _No_. Not that way. He was my _teacher_ , he showed me--you have no idea the things he helped me achieve. Through the Force, he guided me in all the ways that I needed.”

And little Ben Solo _had_ needed guidance, already covered in white marks of his own making and brimming with fear and shame. Snoke had come to him in the night, gently filled your mind with something to wash away your insecurities, stripped away your faltering will and replaced it with something greater. It had been awful and wonderful and everything that you had needed: Snoke had told you _stop struggling, boy_ , and the moment you’d obeyed had been such sweet _relief_ , so far beyond anything food or a night-time tumble could bring you.

After that, what could you do but follow wherever your Master led?

But even before you finished speaking, Dameron’s face had changed, gone dark and hard. He looks at you then at the ground then back up. “So what you’re saying,” he says, and the tone of his voice makes the hair on your arms stand up, “is that some Sith Lord used the Force to make a twelve year old boy his sub, and I should feel, what, _fine_ with that because at least the sick bastard never actually _fucked the kid_?”

By the end of the sentence he is shouting. The sound feels like it might split your head open. You lash out, sending Dameron flying to the opposite end of the room to slam into the stone wall.

Rising, you let the rising anger in your chest flow through you, gathering the Dark to your fingertips until you can feel its power thrum with your heartbeat. “You will not speak of my Master that way,” you say, your voice falling to the cadence and octave that used to fill your mask. _So like your grandfather_ , your Master’s voice murmurs approvingly.

For the first time, Dameron’s eyes are full of fear. Very nearly you choose to end it there, to snap the man’s neck--but he had come in the night when you needed him. For a precious, crystalline moment in time he had been, if not your Master then a comfort. Something to keep the nightmares at bay.

Releasing him, you wait while he catches his breath. “Go,” you say. “Leave and do not come back.”

Dameron leaves, taking with him his tent and pillow and smile. The fruit he leaves behind; you sit and watch it rot.


	3. Finn

On the fifty-second day, another ship arrives. It’s still not her: no ship she piloted would be so unsteady in the air, even in the grip of a rising storm.

You have spent the intervening time reshaping the terrain of the island bit by bit, digging trenches that have no purpose, stacking rocks like one of Skywalker’s stupid exercises, or seeing how deep you can dive in the water before one of sentry droids assigned to keep you from finishing yourself off dives down and drags you to the surface. It is mostly a bored exercise: the most advanced species you have encountered on this tiny ocean moon is a type of large squid that views the affairs of landwalkers as disastrous and wants nothing to do with you.

You can’t fault the creature’s logic.

So instead you have turned to the sky and the sea. The new Republic likely chose this moon as your prison for its placidity; but under your influence the sea has grown rough and the sky darkens with clouds.

Like all the most potent demonstrations of your true strength with the Force, you’d done it by accident. You’d had a nightmare, _the_ nightmare again and without the helpful distraction of Dameron upon waking you'd launched into one of your howling rages. You've always had them, even as a child: your father had called them tantrums and admonished you to _grow up, you’re too old for this, Ben_ while your mother had said nothing and felt afraid.

You had feared yourself, too, before your Master assured you that the episodes were merely a sign of your true nature as a Dark Jedi, like your grandfather before you.

When the rages happen it’s as though a fog descends and everything speeds up; your chest tightens to a vice, pressuring everything inside; and every corner of your mind catches fire.

Your watchers have stopped sending duty droids and you have no knife to drive into your own flesh, so the whirlwind inside you turns outward, ripping into the air and sea.

When you finally come back to yourself you are somewhere in the rolling hills above the shore, curled on your side with your face pressed in the dry, white grass, and dark clouds have formed overhead. Sitting up, you examine the brewing storm. Perhaps you'll strike yourself with lightning.

The swirl of chaos is just promising a proper onslaught when you hear the sounds of an engine.

The shuttle is coming in too fast, too hard, and it is purely instinct that makes you throw up a hand, steadying it through the Force. Purely instinct that catches you off-guard because it _works_ , it is very nearly effortless to ease the craft down to a bumpy but safe landing. Perhaps you have grown stronger in your time here.

The pilot emerges, panting and crying out, “Kriffing hell-- _thank you_ , I thought I was going to--”

He cuts off, his eyes bugging out as you seize him by the throat. “ _Traitor_ ,” you snarl, or try to. Your voice is a mere whisper, your throat full of hot knives. You must have been screaming.

“Rey sent me!” FN-2187 croaks around Kylo’s hold.

That makes you loosen your grip, but only momentarily. “You’re lying,” you grunt.

“Not _really_. She’d--she _would_ have--if she _knew_ \--please don’t. _Stop_.”

Slowly you release him and the traitor pants, rubbing at his throat. “Why doesn’t she know?”

You skim FN-2187’s mind as you ask, but you needn’t have bothered. “She’s gone...with Luke Skywalker. Trouble...in Likka’ska system.”

Not the good kind of trouble, from what little you can glean, not the kind that might free you from this exile and return you to any kind of power or--simply _free_ you. At this point you would settle for that. “And she failed to take her favorite lapdog with her?”

Straightening, FN-2187 actually gives you an affronted look. “I’m not her--is that any way to talk to somebody who’s trying to save your life?”

“Is that what you’re here to do?”

“Yes!” FN-2187 spreads both arms in a wide gesture that encompasses the towering thunderheads above them. “Unless you can _undo_ that?”

You cannot, and the emergency shelter structure that FN-2187 hastily erects around the Hole looks small and too fragile against the darkening skies. Ignoring the fool’s repeated requests for assistance in his task, you stand barefoot on the sharp stones and stare upward at the swirling clouds. They have gone beyond your control, now, even if you wanted to silence the storm.

 _What_ power _,_ your Master murmurs in your ear. _What_ waste _. I could have taught you so much._

“You did,” you whisper. You have taken to answering, lately. For a time you even imagined his Master with you here, towering above your smaller form and ordering you about the movements of your day. _Move that pile of rocks, my apprentice. Destroy that droid. Dig a hole._ But He would not deign to even observe such a pitiful existence, and so He has shrunk to a fragile whisper, a thread that you wrap around your own throat.

FN-2187 herds you inside just as the storm hits. The emergency shelter--a spidery black exoskeleton clamped around the Hole’s walls--strains and creaks but holds. The wind howls as if betrayed.

FN-2187 grabs your hand. You twitch, startled by the contact, and free yourself mostly by accident.

“Oh. Sorry.” FN-2187 steps away.

He’s brought another chair, one that he takes out of his pack and unfolds, and sits at the table making a meal of some powdered meat and vegetables. Its smell fills the Hole and your mouth floods. Your body is not starving, that is not being _allowed_ to you, but it’s been some time since you ate.

The food is a distraction, a trick, like Dameron and his damned fruit. “Have there been any signs of the First Order in this quadrant?”

FN-2187 looks up from his task and blinks. “Uh. I don’t know?”

He truly doesn’t. “Has the new Republic established quorum yet?”

“Uhhhhh. I have no idea.”

You scowl. “Has Skywalker re-established a Jedi Order?”

“I don’t know! Rey mentioned it, but I think they’re kind of busy right now.”

“How can you _not know_? You’re with them now, aren’t you?”

“No! Well, yes, but no, I’m not part of the Resistance anymore.”

“Oh, did you grow tired of killing your fellows?”

FN-2187’s face falls. He looks at the food bubbling in its container on the table in front of him. “Yes. Not tired, but...it was hard. At first I was just killing to stay alive and I didn’t have time to think about it, but after a while...I’d shoot someone and think, if I take their helmet off will I see someone that I used to know, somebody I grew up with? I never wanted to kill for the First Order and I don’t want to kill for the Resistance, either.”

A little silence falls inside the Hole, disturbed by the roar of wind and the hiss of the portable burner. “What will you do?” you ask despite yourself.

Taking a deep breath, FN-2187 smiles at you. “Be a farmer. Or a doctor, I’m not sure which. Both take the same amount of training. I was thinking pilot, and had Poe and Rey show me the basics, but--I dunno, I like being in one place.”

“All the glory and honor,” you sneer. “I read your file, you were first in your division--Phasma had you marked for command. And you gave up all that to be a _farmer_.”

“Yes,” FN-2187 says. “I absolutely did.”

-o-

FN-2187 sleeps in the outer room on a pop-up pallet. You lie in the inner room and stare at the ceiling, raking the Force across your chest anytime your eyelids droop.

By morning the storm has broken. Patches of clouds still dot the sky but without your influence they drift gently instead of hurtling towards one another. The island, unaccustomed to such a downpour, sheds the excess water in hurrying streams and a million drips of water.

You emerge together, blinking, and FN-2187 groans. "Oh, no, my ship.”

It is on its side. “You don’t know any maintenance...?” FN-2187 starts to ask you then trails off. “Nevermind. Forget I asked. Okay, well, let’s clean up.”

Too late you remember the designation of _Sanitation Specialist_ , and by then you have sacrificed both of your shirts to the cause of scrubbing the Hole from top to bottom. It is menial, grotesque work, but a night of thinking has led you to the conclusion that you need to change your tactics: if FN-2187 cannot give you intelligence, then Kylo Ren will be _friendly_. You will be obedient and charming and if necessary you will part your legs for a former stormtrooper’s cock. Surely Dameron made a report on you once he left; he cannot have been allowed on the moon without one. FN-2187...no, _Finn_ , he calls himself Finn now, will have heard that report even if he has nothing else to do with the Resistance. He knows Dameron and Rey personally. They are _friends_.

So you scrub half of the Hole until the skin of your fingers tear. By mid-afternoon Finn is satisfied, but then he turns his attention to you. “You need a haircut.”

Your hair hangs past your shoulders, now. “All right.”

“And a shave.”

You grit your teeth. You are friendly, you are obedient, you are charming. “All right.”

Instead of summoning a droid for the task, Finn takes you out onto the hill above the Hole and sits you down on a large rock. He has _scissors_. “Are you a hygienist as well as a farmer and doctor?”

“I was in the First Order. Sooner or later everyone needed a haircut to see out of those stupid helmets.”

That’s all the warning he gives before he crooks a knuckle under your chin and tilts your head back.

It is...a struggle, at first, not to fight for the baring of your own throat. But then it is not a struggle at all, and you want to hate that. Physical touch is a thing of the Light: it binds and bonds person to person, the Force moving through chemical channels in the brain. The way of the Order, of the Sith, was to guard one’s skin at all times beneath cloaks and gloves, and it has been a very, very long time since anyone has touched you this gently. Even Dameron had left bruises during your assignation.

You are so _weak_ for this.

You want to hate the way your eyes fall shut as Finn moves your hair this way and that, making little noises or comments to himself as he does so; you want to hate the way you let Finn tilt your head with one knuckle under your jaw; you want to hate the way your body goes lax-- _So easy_ , your Master croons--underneath Finn’s hands.

You don't.

Eventually Finn steps back and says, “Okay. Go wash up.” You're situated next to a pool of water collected in the rock. It is perfectly clear as you splash into it, wiping your body clean of dirt and hair. _Wash yourself_ , your Master’s voice says, but it isn’t your Master at all. Your Master never cared for your physical being; it was always secondary to your strength in the Force.

You leave the pool dirtier than you found it--and is that not the sum of your life?--before stepping out onto the hill. The ground underneath your feet is warm white stone; you flex your bare toes against it.

Finn has laid down on his back with his eyes closed, enjoying the fitful sun among the clouds.

You stand a few feet away. You’d stripped to your bare skin before getting in the water; Finn hadn’t told you to do that but you’d thought--maybe you’d been wrong. Maybe you should go get the worn trousers you’d taken off. Your shirt is already in pieces from scrubbing. Should you have done that?

You stand there for a few minutes, your thoughts flying faster and faster, until Finn’s eyes slit open. Instantly they widen and he sits up. “Hey,” he says. “Hey.”

He reaches out and finds your hand, tugs at it. You go to your knees, staring at nothing in particular. You are shaking. Finn’s fingers on your skin are unbearable, like a mouthful for a starving man: it only makes you feel your hunger more acutely.

Finn says, “I know that look. I--Poe gets me, when I’m that way. Rey, too, I guess, but she’s still--are you okay?”

It is unbearable to be asked a question. You grit your teeth, struggling to free yourself from the mire of Light. If you could pluck the scissors from Finn’s pocket you would drive them into your own leg as cheap copy of the pain your Master had inflicted on you whenever you strayed...and you strayed so often.

You are just gathering his power to form an invisible edge of your own when Finn tugs at your wrist, drawing you off-balance. You sway forward and your muscles will not hold you; fortunately that seems to be Finn’s goal, because he twists to let you drop onto your belly on the rock. 

If you were not so compromised you might adopt a seductive look--or attempt to, given that your clearest memory of a lustful expression was Hux’s face when the Starkiller Base first successfully fired--but instead you lie there and let this stormtrooper... _pet_ you. There is no other word for it: Finn starts off by working his fingers through your hair, now a mere handful in length. Once he’s mussed it to his liking, Finn switches to sliding his palm down your back in long, slow strokes. At first he stays above the ribs; but as you melt deeper into the stones below you that warm hand dips into the small of your back, across your ass, even pauses to give one cheek a squeeze, before sliding upwards again in a constantly-roaming touch.

The sensation is hypnotic and you find yourself drifting further. It is not the sweet, awful release of your Master’s Training or even the heady distraction Dameron had offered; this is something far gentler, a slight muting of the thoughts and feelings and memories that plague you. They remain, yes, but for the first time in months they are...bearable.

Your body reacts as well, and if you were on your back you would shame yourself; you think, distantly, that Finn probably put you on your front for that very reason. When you first entered service to your Master--with all the proclivities of a fifteen year old boy--you had worn a device around the base of your cock to prevent your body’s reaction. But that had proven tricky to wear in combat, especially performing the Ataru, and so you’d had to rely on your own willpower and your Master’s scorn to keep yourself in check.

You try to conjure up the latter now but doesn’t even get a whisper. Perhaps it is merely that you spent so much building the storm, but you can’t remember when you last felt so far removed from the Dark.

When the daylight starts to fade Finn gets you up and takes you to the Hole, which smells like disinfectant, and gives you new clothes that were clearly made to fit you. Tells you to dress. Watches you with a slightly worried expression as he does so. You avoid his gaze even as the soft fog around you fades and your thoughts and emotions rush back in like waves battering at you.

It is always this way, after. A mouthful is agony to a starving man, and a feast is torment when it’s over.

Again you reach into your mind for the steadiness of your Master’s voice. _Dress. Eat. Go to your pallet and lie down._ But the tones are faltering and weak, nothing like when you'd first heard it as a child. Then, Ben had rushed to bed and lain there awake each night, anxiously waiting to be Trained the way he needed. To have the inner turmoil lifted from him. _Please Master I need you--hush your wailing, I am here--_

“Please,” you whisper aloud to your room in the Hole, with the stormtrooper’s snores echoing from the outer room. “Please.”

And finally, as if she heard you, she comes.


	4. Asha

She doesn’t come alone. Of course neither are you, at the moment. The stormtrooper can’t very well leave the moon with his ship damaged.

What you don’t tell him is this: you grew up racing through the guts of a flying hunk of scrap metal, small fingers diving past switches, blinded by something venting when it shouldn’t be, yanking wires open and soldering them together with your mind. Always five parsecs from death and disintegration, stitching the ship together as they hurtled through hyperspace.

You...have enjoyed the company. Mostly. Finn is excitable and talks too much, eats with his mouth open, and seems to require near-constant physical contact. For the last, you are willing to forgive him the former. It’s nothing like before, not so carefully deliberate. Finn’s elbow bumps yours as you plant seeds together--Finn is practicing being a farmer, with little success--his feet move to bracket yours as he shovels food in his mashing mouth, and his ankle rests against your knee as you sit on the floor, playing a round of sabacc. There is no intent behind the touches, they simply flow from him like breath. The carelessness is both succor and poison.

Time passes slower on the little moon, the days lasting much longer than standard. It has been four days since Finn crash-landed but you think it must be longer. You are almost sure it has been longer. You wonder why no one has come to pick Finn up.

You think you are barely holding on. Your fingernails certainly look it, chewed back to the quick and occasionally dripping blood. Even the false construct of your Master has gone silent and Finn looks at you strangely when you mutter orders to yourself. Finn won’t give you any--you have already asked, in a moment of unforgiveable weakness. You nearly put Finn through a wall when he refused, but then there would be no one to touch your skin when it feels like the sun has been in the sky forever.

So you follow Finn around like a stray and hope for an accidental shoulder against yours and pretend that Finn’s instructions on row planting in the craggy, lifeless ground has some point to them.

And then: a ship. And not any ship, but your _father’s_ ship.

As soon as the Falcon breaks atmo you know it’s her. Your Force bond, however accidentally forged, is as strong as ever. In one flash you know that she is hurt, but not badly; that the trouble in Likka’ska was the Hutts attempting to seize power and establish themselves as warlords in the power vacuum left behind by the collapse of the First Order; that Poe is with her in the Falcon’s co-pilot seat; and that the two of them are in sharp, tense disagreement on something to do with you.

Then she feels you and swiftly closes her mind, leaving you howling in silent want.

Finn has gone up to high ground to meet them, close enough that they actually have to adjust the landing trajectory so as not to crush him. You drift in Finn’s wake with your arms wrapped tight around yourself. It is an old self-soothing technique that Uncle-- _no_ , no, dammit, that the Jedi scum Skywalker told you, back when he’d presumed to train the servant of Master Snoke. The Jedi, too, avoid human touch as a rule--too much opportunity for _passion_.

It is shameful to revert to such a thing: she will see, she will surely recognize it as coming from Skywalker--and was maybe taught the same--but you think that if you let go you will fly apart.

Dameron comes down the walkway first and--sweeps Finn up into a kiss.

You have two seconds to be confused, offended on Rey’s behalf, and stupidly, achingly hopeful before Rey comes down the walkway. She’s favoring her left side and Finn is careful, so careful as he slides his arm around her--just the one arm. The other is still wrapped around Poe’s neck and _oh_.

Rey jerks back from Finn’s kiss as if struck by an electric charge and snaps her gaze to your face. It’s your turn to throw up barriers now, but she’s seen too much already, judging from the fear and--and _concern_.

How dare she. How dare she leave you here for...however long it’s been, and then look at you like _that_.

Spinning away, you move to leave them, to go back to the Hole and _die there_ , but you're brought up short almost immediately. Your limbs seize and refuse to move.

"Release me," you croak. Finn has been making you drink water but your throat still feels raw and tight.

"No. Ben--"

" _Don’t call me that_ ," you scream, or try to. The words curl like burned paper as they leave your mouth, insubstantial and ashen. Where your body fails you lash out with the Force, striking at all three of them.

It rebounds and knocks you to the ground. The skin of your palms tear on the rocks as you catch yourself, staining their white surface with your blood. Rolling onto your back, your gaze is immediately filled by the flare of heat on her face as she moves to stand between you and the others. You know that look. You _crave_ that look.

 _Yes_ , you tell her, gathering the tatters of your own power. It is bones, white and bare as the rocks beneath you, but you will shatter them against her and be so very, miserably glad. _Yes_.

Finn steps between you and Rey .

"No," he says firmly, pointing first at you and then spinning to jab his finger into Rey’s chest hard enough that she stumbles backward, surprise overtaking the darkness that had too briefly filled her.

Poe is right behind Finn, taking his shoulders. His eyes are fixed on you.

"Get up," he says.

You stare at him.

Poe’s expression changes, darkens to something that almost matches Rey. " _Get. Up_."

You get up. You can’t see Rey, blocked by both Finn and Poe, but you can feel her like a thrum of energy in the air.

"We made food," Finn says over his shoulder, not turning away from Rey.

"Awesome," Poe says, not turning away from Kylo. "Let’s eat."

Poe’s brought some kind of...picnic blanket, which he and Finn proceed to spread out, then pick up and relocate when they discover a particularly sharp set of rocks. You look to Rey for some kind of explanation, but her attention is elsewhere: she stares upward at the surface of the planet that fills most of their visible sky. You know it too well: the giant blue-green planet with its delicate rings is almost always in sight, though when it moves to block the nearby star its color fades to near-blackness and the rings turn white. They are at sunset, now, which will last for so many long hours that the fantastic show of light and hue and the dance of planets has long since lost its beauty for you.

Rey watches it with open wonder, her lips softly parted, and you watch her as if she is a planet, a star. When you finally find the faltering strength to tear your gaze away you find Finn looking at you.

"Here we go," Poe says, apparently satisfied by the lack of sharp objects in his ass. "What've you, oh, sandwiches, that's awesome, pal! Thanks."

"Kylo made them," Finn admits. His food-making attempts had been as pitiful as his farming.

Poe sends you a considering look as you hover at the edge of the blanket. "Well. Thanks. Here, sit down, have some."

It's too much like before and you won't fall for that again, won't _debase_ yourself that way--but Rey is sitting down on one corner of the blanket, so you kneel cautiously on the other. You don't touch the sandwich that Finn places near your knee. It is a Ben thing you learned to construct as a child.

"How was Likka'ska?" Finn asks with a quarter of his sandwich already bulging from one cheek.

"Smelly," Rey answers, wrinkling her nose. She, too, is utterly unselfconscious about speaking with her mouth full. She continues, relating the story of their encounter with the Hutts that you had already gleaned from her mind; you use the pretense of listening to examine her more closely. Her left arm stays close to her side, protecting her ribs and her hair has grown out; but other than that she looks very much the same as when they last parted, you being led away in binders and Rey staring after you, bloody and dazed. The cuts on her face from Snoke's torture devices have healed into faint white scars that mar her bottom lip, one nostril, and the tip of an ear. Her hair hides the rest: a jigsaw covering her scalp where the machines had attached.

 _I see why you wear a helmet_ , she'd whispered to you back on Kusuk, giggling at your expression.

Rey's voice falters and she darts a glance at you. Quickly you shutter your thoughts, turning to Dameron. "Does General Organa still rule the Rebel fleet? Or has she expired at her command station?"

Poe, who seems to be the only one with the decency not to wolf his food, raises his eyebrows. "Actually, she retired. Moved to a new colony on what's left of the Raklan system's largest planet.

"Really." You chuff a laugh. "That's a lie. I give it two years before she contacts you to work in her spy network."

A brief flash of emotion passes over Poe's face, which he quickly redirects towards his sandwich. You could follow through and make snide comments about _the mother you wish you had_ and _the son who should have been_ , but you find yourself drawn up short. Rey is watching you, a thick line drawn between her brows.

Finn, who has finished his sandwich and spent the last few minutes fidgeting, bursts out with, "So I have a confession. Don't be mad! Or, maybe I did something wrong and you should be mad at me, in which case I'm sorry and I didn't mean to."

"Breathe, buddy. What'd you do?"

"I...accidentally Mastered Kylo?" He pulls a face at you; you stare back in frozen silence. "I really didn't mean to."

There follows a brief pause as Poe looks at you and Rey looks at Finn. "What, uh, what was that like?" Poe finally asks. Bewildered and...interested.

"Totally, totally accidental," Finn emphasizes. "I gave him a haircut and it turned into some...petting? Like you did to me, before, you know--" He breaks off and touches his head in demonstration; his eyes are fixed on Poe's face.

Something brushes against your mind and you grasp at it before you even realize: it's Rey. Not the way that you need, but curious, wondering _what_ was _that like?_

You shove at her, shutting her out, and turn on Finn fully intending to apply pressure to the thirteen centimeters of space that occupied his breathing passageway--except Poe is touching him, smoothing his hand over the pathway that Finn's fingertips had dug.

"It's okay, buddy," Poe soothes. Finn's eyes are still locked on his face. "Easy. I'm not angry. Are you angry, Rey?"

"No," Rey blurts after a short pause, then softer, "No, I'm not."

"It's okay," Poe says again, and he's _laughing_ softly, gently, looking between Finn and you. Finn is...anxious, that's what that look means, he's leaning closer to Poe like a plant seeking the sun and unlike all the rows they've sowed recently he finds his supplication filled; Poe slides fingers through Finn's short, curly hair. He touches Finn's cheek gently and Finn's eyes flutter shut. "We're not angry," Poe repeats gently.

A tendril of fury whips through your chest. You send it out between them, shoving them apart.

They fall to either side, more startled than hurt, and Rey makes a wordless, angry cry of her own, rocking forward into a crouch. The tendril comes lashing back twice as strong, momentarily stealing the breath from your lungs with pain and shock. It is a thing of the Dark that Snoke taught her; you would not have expected her to use it on you again.

Finn demands, affronted, "What was that for?!"

 _That isn't fair_ , you almost say but catch yourself. It doesn't matter: Rey batters at your mind like a storm with eyes ablaze; she is never more frightening than in defense of her friends.

"If you wanted it that bad," she says, her voice nothing like the sing-song she'd adopted as a servant of Snoke but just as terrible, "then maybe you should _ask_."

There is Force behind her last word and "Please" pops out of your mouth, weak and utterly humiliating. She smirks at you and your chest twists harder than any Force blow could render.

"He already did," Poe interjects. Again he sits forward into the charged space between you and Rey; unlike Rey there is no barb hidden in his smile. " _We_ already did that, remember? You could have that again, if you want."

It's Rey's turn to whip her head around, staring at Poe, and the pressure around your head disappears so suddenly that your ears pop. It takes you a moment to find your words. "How dare you mock me."

"I'm not." Poe is leaning forward over his crossed legs, his hands spread and his posture relaxed. Only his eyes betray his tension.

Scowling, you heave to your feet then almost falls back down again. Your head swims and your vision darkens. Blinking it away, you spit at Poe, "I _tortured_ you. You!" You jab a finger at Finn. "I almost split you in two on my lightsabre. On Ixia I ordered your execution. I would have done it myself! I have killed--so many!" You fling his hands up in the air. There is blood on your right hand; for a moment it distracts you in its improbable aptness, before you remember the rocks. "Dozens by my own hands, from the age of fifteen. Hundreds, maybe _thousands_ have died at my word. I commanded--starfleets. Troops. I sat at the right hand of the most powerful being in the galaxy, so do not _presume_ to come to my tiny prison and _taunt_ me with--"

"But you were a lot younger," Rey says soft as a blade cutting skin, "the first time you killed someone. Weren't you?"

For a moment you don't catch her meaning--or you do, but you have pushed those thoughts and memories aside so many times by now that you do it automatically. _No that can't be what she means_ \--but it _is_ and you can only gaze at her in shock akin to being gutted.

"It was his baby sister," Rey tells Poe and Finn, matter-of-fact, before turning back to you. "Asha, that was her name, wasn't it?"

"Rey--" Poe says.

Something bubbles out of your throat. It's a laugh. It sounds insane. Your body feels hot, like a sun that might explode. It feels like one of your rages, but no blackout welcomes you; something tethers you to your body. Rey.

"You," you say in a high, strangled voice not your own, "will make an excellent spy."

"It wasn't your mother who told me," Rey answers sharply. She's still crouched, one hand on a knee as if she might spring at you any moment. "It was Snoke. He told me so that I could hurt you with it someday. He said that you did it on accident--that you were ten and you were watching her while your parents were away. They were always away, he said, and afterwards they sent _you_ away, to Luke."

The sun is too bright, even in sunset. Your hands are--tingling? Numb? You flex them. "She wouldn't stop crying," you mumble.

"It was an accident," Poe murmurs. He was there, back then. He knows.

You bare your teeth. "Do you think that _matters_?"

"Yes," Finn says quietly. He flinches when you round on him and picks at crumbs on the blanket. "And you saved Rey, in the end. I couldn't, Poe couldn't, but you killed Snoke all on your own and brought her back. You saved all of us, really. Thanks." He finally lifts his gaze, squinting up at you. "I don't think--has _anyone_ thanked you for that? You saved the galaxy, Kylo."

You glare down at him, wanting again to choke and silence these--these incomprehensible words. Nothing in them make sense, they're the words of a--a deranged fool. Kylo Ren is a monster in a mask, not someone deserving of thanks, no savior, not--your Master, you were a loyal slave, you would never--not--

 _And that one_ , Rey presses ruthlessly into your stuttering mind, _was_ not _an accident_.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past child death and past torture is mentioned, Kylo experiences a nervous breakdown complete with dissociation.


	5. Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so belated. First my 8-year-old laptop started freezing and crashing, so I bit the bullet and purchased a new one. Once it arrived I spent a while getting it set up; but then IT froze and crashed just as I was about to finish this chapter and I lost most of the last scene. I've re-written it but honestly, I can't stand to spend any more time on this update and I just want to fucking post and be done with it. Please know that the last half of this is but a pale, shitty copy of the original, which I was actually super-proud of and was gutted when I lost it.

It's Finn who gets up and crosses to Kylo or Ben or whoever he is right now. It's Finn who sits him back down and tears off pieces of the sandwich to feed him, piece by piece.

Rey turns to Poe, who is watching her, and barely manages not to show him her teeth. "I told you."

"You told me you would try," Poe says, implacable. "You didn't say that you would _try_ to do an impression of Snoke."

Rey recoils, but it's true. She can still feel Snoke inside of her like a screw driven into metal. There's a reason she turned down Luke's offer of a position at his new school.

For a long time it was reason enough to leave the Resistance, as well. To avoid Finn and his hurt, confused expression; to drive away Poe and his stern compassion. She'd imagined fleeing to a planet on the Outer Rim and staying there in exile, especially after she'd heard of Kylo Ren's imprisonment here.

It had seemed only fair: she, too, had spilled blood for Snoke. If it hadn't been for Kylo Ren turning on his own master, her homecoming would have gone very differently. She's imagined it a hundred times. Arriving in a rain of fire that tore Poe's X-wing apart in the sky; driving her lightsaber into Finn's chest as she broke through their defenses; sweeping Master Luke's head from his shoulders and bearing it back to Snoke as a gift.

She's imagined it and squirmed with delight. She's imagined it and spent the next few hours in the 'fresher puking her guts out.

She wants to puke, now, as she watches Finn stroke hair out of Kylo's face. "I don't know how," she whispers.

"Yes, you do. You've Mastered Finn a dozen times now, and he's still standing."

"It's, it's different with him. He--"

"Ben wants you to kill him." When she turns to him, Poe's gaze is implacable. "Do you want to? He hurt you--held you hostage, tried to kill you a few times. I wouldn't blame you if you did."

His calmness grates over Rey's skin and she retreats before she can give into the urge to lash out. It is so close to the surface now; she wishes she could blame that on Snoke and his wretched devices, but they merely elevated what was already inside of her, waiting. She can remember fighting Kylo Ren on the Starkiller base, _beating_ him, stalking his retreat through the woods. It had felt so good to repay his cruelty in kind. That urge still lives in her.

_Quiet. Turn it aside._

The Force is no shelter, either. Ever since the day they met on Takodana, she and Kylo have been tied to one another. Usually such a bond only forms between a master and padawan, and at first Rey had fought it with everything in her. To her surprise, so had Kylo Ren: she'd expected him to exploit their connection, to spy on her and the Resistance, but instead whenever he'd felt her presence in his mind his reaction had bordered on sheer panic.

She should have realized sooner what that meant.

_Quiet. Turn it aside._

This isn't proper meditation, she's still too aware of the others sitting near her and the gathering chill of sunset; but it's as close as she can get anymore without surrendering to the pull of Kylo's mind. At the moment his mental barriers lie in ruins; she did that, deliberately, had felt him falter and pushed exactly where she knew would do the most damage.

In the wreck of himself, he feels very much like a huddled child.

He has felt this way before...just after he killed Snoke. Their flight from Utari is a blur in Rey's memory, battered as she was by the machines and the drugs and the sudden wrenching absence of Snoke inside her mind. It had been worse for Kylo, she knew: through their connection his mind had been a howl of _forgive me Master I am sorry Master please please don't leave me_.

As if he hadn't sliced Snoke open himself only a few minutes earlier.

One moment sticks out in Rey's mind. In the midst of the bombardment, Chewbacca, Poe, and Finn had broken through the lines and--demonstrating nearly-suicidal amounts of courage--gone exactly where Kylo Ren had told them to go. The coordinates and battle plans he'd secretly transmitted to the Resistance had proven true; but the three of them bore eternal scars, both in body and mind, from Kylo.

Still, they had come, and found Kylo and Rey where they had collapsed on the landing pad--or where Kylo had collapsed, carrying Rey--and gotten them out.

Somewhere between that and the Resistance base, in the cramped confines of the Falcon, Rey had reached out from where Finn was fearfully examining the wounds on her head to find Kylo in the makeshift prison Chewbacca had flung him into. He'd flinched from her but she'd summoned gentleness that she had forgotten she possessed and gingerly pressed one thought into his mind: _Why?_

The answer had seeped through the cracks: _Because he was going to do to you what he did to me. And you don't deserve it._

In that moment it had stretched out beyond them both: a lifetime of hopeless service. _You were made to please_ , his Master had said one of the first times his voice had filled little Ben’s mind, and Ben had thought, _Yes, yes, please,_ **anything**. And he’d done anything, hadn’t he? Dark, terrible things that made him shake, all to feel his Master’s approval flooding him. Anything he loved, he’d given up; he’d turned with hatred on those who opposed Master, who dared to have those things--family, home, hope--denied to Kylo Ren; he’d handed himself over again and again and again on a plate, more stripped of flesh each time until he was nothing but crumbled bone.

And for what?

A deep well of despair had swirled in him, sucking Rey down, and she'd torn herself free only with great effort.

She holds him away now, even as the shards of his mind begin to re-gather. She feels them even as Finn pets his shoulders, even as Poe rises and crosses to pull them both to their feet, guiding them inside the Falcon.

Poe does not attempt to guide her. He knows better.

By the time she does follow them inside the Falcon, Finn has seated Kylo in the galley, wrapped in a thick blanket and surrounded by cushions. Poe, she senses, is in the cockpit reassuring someone that no, despite appearances they are not attempting to jailbreak Kylo Ren. No, they will not take off with him aboard. _No_ , they do not need--

"You know, you don't have to hurt him in order to hurt yourself," Finn says in a low, dark voice.

Rey jolts, staring at him. Finn stands a few feet away--between her and Kylo. She starts to say, "I didn't--"

"Yes you _did_ ," Finn snaps, and she recoils harder. Finn's rage rarely shows itself, not like Rey or even Poe, but its scarcity makes it that much worse. The last time he'd been truly angry, Poe had come back from a mission on a stretcher with pieces of his ship sticking out of him; Finn had waited until he was better, both he and Rey keeping vigil at Poe's bedside, before coldly giving Poe his opinion on personal safety and unnecessary risk-taking.

After Finn had kissed him and stomped out of the room, Poe had looked up at Rey with his eyes wide on his pale, sweaty face and murmured, "Think I'd rather get shot again."

Right now, so would Rey.

"You've been running from this ever since Utari," Finn says in an even voice. "You've never been a coward, Rey, don't turn into one now."

For someone with little Force sensitivity, Finn has the ability to slice away the outer layer of everything at once. "That's not _fair_ ," she says and already her breath saws at her throat, hot and full of rising tears. "You don't know what it's like, you can't _feel him_ like I can."

"I know that!" Finn yells, flailing his hands in the air. "You think I haven't noticed? You've been getting worse for months, Rey--part of you has been _here_ with him _the whole time_ , of course we kriffing noticed!"

Rey tears her gaze away, fixing it on the floor of the ship. Her eyes overflow. Sighing, Finn steps closer and cups his hands on either sides of her face, gently tipping her cheek up to his lips. "I love you," he murmurs against her temple. "Poe loves you. We're not going to leave you here, but that means not leaving _him_ , either. You may not _like_ being Bonded with him--he definitely wouldn't have been my first choice," he adds lightly and Rey can't help but laugh a little through her tears. "But you are. So."

He ends with a shrug, his fingers stroking her hair back from her wet face. Rey leans into him, biting her lower lip. After a moment, she whispers, "I called him a monster, once."

"He is."

She tilts her head back, searching his eyes. "I was a monster once," she says, the words barely more than a breath.

Finn meets her gaze and doesn't blink. "You _are_. And I love you, and Poe loves you, which means there's something worth loving in _him_. Both of you--you had terrible stuff done to you, and you did terrible things. You can run from that forever, but it's not going to matter if he's still in your head feeling all the guilt and pain _for_ you. So save him, Rey. Save him, save yourself."

"How?"

Finn gives an exasperated huff and steps back. She wants to grab him and cling but forces herself to straighten. "You _know_ how. There's a reason you two Bonded as hard as you did. Stop running and figure it out."

He leaves, going up to the cockpit to join Poe. Silence falls in the galley; it takes a few moments for Rey to look at what's left of Kylo Ren.

If he senses her regard through the Force, he doesn't react. Instead there is a kind of weak fluttering inside his head, like the twitches of a stunned animal. Outwardly he gives no sign of this struggle, other than a tic of his fingers against the blanket wrapped around him. His gaze rests in the mid-distance of the floor.

He is not, Rey thinks as she considers his profile, particularly handsome. His features are too haphazardly stitched together from pieces of his parents, with no concern for symmetry and now bisected by the scar she gave him. When first they'd met, he had sparked nothing but terror in her, even after he removed his mask to reveal the large eyes and full lips that made him seem so much younger than his age. Some of the fear had shifted place in favor of curiosity; but that had not been the moment their Bond had forged.

It wasn't even when he'd entered her mind. She'd never felt anything like that violation before: he'd told her he could take whatever he wanted and then he'd set out to do just that, not by force of body but of will.

But Rey--Rey, who had fought for survival for as long as she could remember--had pushed back.

That still wasn't the moment.

No, the moment came when _she_ had chased his retreat into _his_ mind, had inexpertly swung her gift in the Force like a blunt instrument in a way that left both their minds aching. He had given ground physically as well, staggering away and staring at her in fear...

...followed by a faint shudder of pleasure that shook them both, rattling away their outer layers.

A shift. The stunned animal peeks out of its hole.

Slowly Rey eases down to sit to the bench seating across from him. He still hasn't moved, except for the long fingers that mindlessly fidget with the edge of the blanket. Closing her eyes, Rey sinks back into the seat and slows her breaths. Meditation has never come easy to her, who spent so many years in vigilance against prowlers and sandstorms and other scavengers. With him so close by, though, it is easier. Not that Kylo Ren's mind is restful; the very opposite. Whenever faced with his maelstrom Rey finds herself instinctively folding up, going quiet.

And there, suddenly, _he_ is. _They_ are.

In his delicate ruins he barely cringes at the first brush of her mind. There's barely anything there _to_ cringe. He's a swirl of dust, holding shape only for a moment before a new eddy tugs at him. He knows she's here with him. He'd called her. Did he call her? He'd thought, hoped that she would kill him at last. That she would be pleased with his death--that he could please her by dying. But the other two, would they? Could he? What? What did they--?

Reaching out, Rey swirls the dust into a new shape: the memory of Finn's hand stroking over his back in the sun on the rocks with his hair poking his eyelid naked and stretched out hoping aching hand sliding but never settling.

And oh, that one she knows. Finn is more tactile than anyone she's ever met, the product of close quarters and no boundaries in stormtrooper barracks; but more than that, he is himself, in total, fashioned from his own dust. Force, she loves him. She'd loved his rage that mirrored her own and now she loves his gentleness, which doesn't.

No sooner has she put these words to thought than _he_ is slipping from her grasp, dissolving. The galley of the Falcon fades around them as she gropes after him.

There's a noise in her ears. A baby, screaming.

_no no no no don't make me please_

She feels it with him. The sick, numb horror of silence.

A thread like a trail of slime across the ground: Ben Solo did that. Little Ben Solo with his tantrums. He doesn't deserve to live. Kill him.

Another diseased tract. It's what he was promised, what he is _owed_. _You were made to please_ , _like your grandfather before you--does that excite you, boy, to know your grandfather was born a slave? You were never meant for the Light. Kill Ben Solo and give yourself to me. Kill the boy and let the slave be born._

She pulls away, her stomach curdling. He feels her retreat and comes hurtling after like a sandstorm, flinging at her the memory of a hand on his face. Han Solo, dying on a red blade with grief in his eyes, like so many have died before. Kylo Ren had done that, Master wanted and so Kylo had obeyed. Anything for his precious Master. He doesn't deserve to live. Kill him.

 _why won't she do it why just_ kill _him just_ do it

Rey doesn't even mean for it to happen, but the screamed internal litany catches on her own footprints pooled with blood, half filled in but still remembered. Backed into a corner, Finn's tears, Poe's frustration, _come back come back no get away from me_ and now it is her turn to cringe, struggling not to follow that familiar path but unexpectedly he crowds her in...

It's been months. She's been back months. Rey has marked the days in a secret place underneath the cot in her single room. On Utari, time had slipped from her: she'd forgotten to mark a day, or had marked twice in a lapse of self. Snoke had been a constant, heavy presence in her mind, like a too-thick atmosphere. He had filled her very nostrils.

Then she had gone out on her first mission for him, had spilled her first blood as a Knight of Ren. That day, she had not marked; that day, she did not want to remember.

She does.

She stays in her room until night falls. This base is located in some kind of nebula-- _don't ask where, don't look for a map, don't memorize coordinates_ \--and even in daylight the sky is painted in swirling colors. At night, it is breathtaking. Instead of sleeping-- _don't go to sleep, you're too vulnerable there_ \--she lies on the hard pavement of the landing strip, listening to the insects until dawn mutes the endless, indifferent explosion above her.

She means to go back to her room-- _stay away from me_ \--but Finn and Poe are in the mess hall. Too early, and they look disheveled. She has kept the Force like a mongrel wrestled to the ground, but worry makes her reach out despite the hot breath behind her own teeth.

Finn cannot sleep. He dreams of faces dead, of places not here; he wakes to things he can _understand_ but not _know_.

For instance: on the plate in front of him, there are three things. What should he eat first? What will taste best? What is polite? And deeper in the soft, growing places of him: how does he choose? How will he know that he's chosen right?

 _Finn_ , Poe says sharply. There is no food in front of him, just a bowl of something that steams. _Eat_.

A prickle of nerves runs up Finn's neck--runs up _hers_ , runs up _his_ \--and he clenches the multitool in his hand. _I'm sorry_.

Poe watches--has been watching, has seen the weight of too many unfamiliar choices--before his face somehow softens and hardens at the same time. Leaning forward, he taps the edge of the plate nearest to a mash of some golden root vegetable.

 _Start here_ , he says in the voice of a master.

Something deep inside of Finn yields like a strained muscle releasing, and he shoves a mouthful of mash between his teeth.

Rey knows what comes next and steps back from her past self--or rather, she takes hold of the buzzing, treacherous line that tethers her and _pulls_.

It's a risk but she's proven right: he is too consumed with the scene before her to lash out. From that safe harbor Rey watches the shock and rage and hurt swell up in her past self-- _how could Poe do that, how could Finn let him, how dare they do that together without her when she wants to so badly, wants to sink her teeth into flesh and feel it_ give _._

She watches her past self fight down the urge to fling herself at Finn (who hadn't noticed her presence) and Poe (who had) and instead turn to flee back to her quarters. It would be another three days before she re-emerged, and only because Finn had seated himself outside her door and stubbornly _thought_ at her until she gave in.

But that reconciliation has not happened yet, and it happened long ago. Right now, Rey has her nose pressed against the invisible shield right along with _him_.

When she turns he is only slightly more solid than before: a wavering, skittish thing that aches and aches and doesn't know how to ask.

She asks for him and his heart curls up tight. How dare she how dare she, he is not a thing that _asks_. He takes and he starves.

His despair tears at her through their connection. Instead of pushing back she allows the days that came after that moment in the cafeteria to telescope out behind her, an intricate piece of machinery that exposes its innards as it expands. There is the day that she watched Finn take Poe into his mouth the first time, following Poe’s careful coaching and occasional swats of reprimand; there is the day that Finn did the same for her, while Poe sternly held his hands because Finn can’t—can _never_ —be trusted to keep them from straying; there are so many days when her own darkness pressed tight against the inside of her skin, and she wanted nothing more than to bite and claw and _hurt_ …and they had let her, coaching her and taking her hands, lancing the wound inside her to let it bleed.

 _They_ keep her balanced, here, on the knife edge between Light and Dark. Between what she was and who she has become.

Her gratitude and love swell around their feet. He twists to escape and now she lashes herself around him. If he truly fought her he could probably get free; but his struggles exist merely to be flattened, his will breaking for hers. Almost, almost, he dissolves again into nothingness—but then she plunges them back into memory, forcing him down.

He goes. It’s too much of what he wants—what he’s always wanted—and he tumbles into it with his face pressed against her belly. She holds him there until he stops fighting and then she thinks very clearly, _good boy_.

He moans against her skin. He's kneeling on the floor between her legs--when had he moved?--and she wraps her thighs around his chest as she plucks memories out of him. The night he spread for Poe's cock she touches only in passing--she and Poe meet in minds, not bodies--but she eagerly dives into the golden blur of an afternoon he spent under Finn's hands.

Somewhere, someone's lips curl. _He does like to touch_.

As if in answer, a warm palm slides over her shoulder and down her back. Rey surfaces again briefly to find Finn at her side on the bench and Poe kneeling behind the man at her feet. Had she summoned them or had they arrived on their own?

Her attention is drawn away again by a spike of anxiety and a roil of muscles against her legs. This isn't allowed to them. Master forbids it.

The screw in Rey's head gives a twist and she bares her teeth, lifting her thoughts like a weapon that she drives down into his core.

 _Master is dead._ I _am Master now._

 _He_ shudders, giving up his body completely. For an awful moment Rey wants to tighten the clench of her legs, to bear down and choke him--but then Poe's fingers gather up someone's wrists and Finn's body settles against someone's back, and she softens. Breathes out. Draws back.

Finn has slid between her and the back of the bench, his hips nudging hers forward. A jolt of heat travels through her as she sees what they mean to do; already Finn's fingers are moving over the lacings at the front of her trousers. She turns to kiss his jaw, meeting his lips on a moan as his hand slides in to cup her wetness.

The head between her legs lifts and pupil-dark eyes flicker over the place where Finn is stroking her. _He's_ not done this before. He's not done anything with anyone that wasn't Finn or Poe or a half-remembered Knight of Ren, a tear-and-blood-slicked recollection that Rey quickly quarantines.

Instead she looses her legs from his sides and slides the fingers of one hand into his dark curls. The other hand she rests on Finn's thigh, nestled against her own. He's hard against her back, but he knows better than to grind against her.

And oh, she lets _him_ feel what he's doing to her. Someone's tongue moves; someone's hand cups a breast, thumb working the nipple; someone's slick fingers press inward and _oh_. _His_ tongue falters on a groan that makes Rey's hips jerk in time to the fingers working him open. She's never cared for that, but _he_ does.

Through the haze of Finn's mouth suckling at her neck, Rey catches Poe's eye. He's watching all three of them with a dark grin that widens. She returns it. Force, she loves him. It was Finn that pulled her back from the edge of her own abyss; but it was Poe who taught her how to live with that abyss.

The moment breaks as Poe shuffles forward on his knees. Finn's breath is warm and fast against the back of her neck and Rey gropes for his hand, shoving it back between her legs as they watch together. There's a moment of resistance, a threatening echo from the bloody memory held tight in Rey's grasp, and she reaches out again to wrap her fingers through the very pathways of his mind. She arches his hips. She spreads his knees. She holds him, perfect and still and helpless to even come, as Poe works his cock deeper, as she slings her legs over his shoulders and drags him back to her, tongue first.

 _Good boy_ , she murmurs. _Good boy_.


	6. Ani

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Longtime readers will perhaps notice the POV change, then go back to re-read previous chapters and be confused. No, the story was not always in second-person POV: in writing this chapter, however, I realized that it always should have been, and this chapter wouldn't work without making that change. Apologies, but that's the nature of a WIP sometimes.
> 
> This is a short chapter and might seem a paltry and overly pat way to end the story. But it sets up the three epilogues, which were what I've really been wanting to write all along. The first epilogue, "Finn and Ani," will be posted within the next couple of days.

You, who used to be called Ben and who used to be called Kylo, slowly become aware of two lightly bickering nearby. It’s annoying; they aren’t even bothering to speak quietly despite the fact that you are clearly at rest. Usually you would Force their mouths shut, but you feel—gelatinous, somehow. The constant roar of your blood has quieted, if not entirely vanished. Part of you thinks that if you move, the spell will be broken.

“Not even once?” Finn asks, sounding amazed.

“Nope,” Poe says. He’s stretched out, drinking something from a bottle. His shirt is gone and the curly black hair on his chest is still damp from exertion. It’s— _obscene_.

“But _why_? I mean, how can you not like breasts? They’re so soft and squishy, until you suck on them and they get hard. It’s just like a penis! You like penises, right? Why are you laughing?”

Poe curls up a little on his side, chuckling. Rey laughs, too. Your are lying half on top of her, your cheek resting against her belly. Finn is down near your feet, all of you crowded together on a nest of blankets and travel pillows that completely fail to disguise the hard floor of the Falcon’s galley beneath.

Finn continues. “I just—I don’t understand. Rey, do you like breasts?”

You can’t see her face, but you can tell that Rey is wrinkling her nose. “I…suppose? I don’t think I’d want to suck on one.”

“What—is the _matter_ with you people—”

“Buddy,” Poe says, and there’s a bit of durasteel in his voice, “this is one of those things that you don’t argue with people about. We like what we like and we don’t like what we don’t like. Trying to convince people otherwise means messing with their free will. I think, though,” he continues in a gentler tone, “that you’re asking for a reason. What’s up, pal, come on, look at me.”

“I—well, Rey always… _watches_ you and me.”

“Oh,” Rey says. Her belly twitches, muscles jumping. You can’t help but rouse a little as well, though your body aches with the effort. You feel strangely shivery, though your skin is not cold.

Poe’s eyebrows rise and he twists around to look at Rey. “Well,” he says thoughtfully and with some doubt. “I guess…I’m willing to try if you are.”

A thrill runs through you, though you keep your eyes closed, fully intending to slip into Poe’s mind and live the experience with him. But then Rey’s fingers nudge against your forehead. “Sit up,” she commands.

It’s not in you to disobey, even though it hurts worse than the burn of your used muscles. Your wrists sting when you put pressure on them and you grit your teeth. You have been shot by blaster, run through by weapons both durasteel and sabre, endured hours of torture and punishment from Snoke; your forearms are crosshatched with your own self-hatred. It should be nothing to roll onto one hip and separate your body from hers. There is no reason for your throat to feel hot and your eyes to burn. Stop. Stop. _Stop, you weakling_ —

A hand touches your downturned face, moving through your shorn hair. “Shhh,” Rey murmurs. “Finn, since you’re the one asking, you take him.”

There's shuffling behind you and then cool hands settle on your exposed hipbone. Legs tangle with yours and you cannot bear to resist. You are being gently handed from one to another and though the fall will come it isn't here yet. Until then there's no need to fight what stolen comfort they foolishly offer. You stretch out on your side, your head resting against Rey's hip and Finn seated behind him, and peek through your hair.  
  
Rey has sat up, propped on her elbows. She's bare-breasted and fighting the urge to giggle as Poe rises onto his knees in front of her. His pants are open and his cock--still impressive in its softness--is only half tucked away. It's about on level with your face and your mouth floods with saliva, wanting it to fill that hole, too.   
  
"Okay," Poe says softly, somehow making it a question. Gently, he curves the fingers of one hand under Rey's jaw. Her giggles die and Poe gives her a quick, reassuring grin before he leans in and presses their lips together. At first it's halfway chaste, their mouths just barely pulling at each other; then Rey tilts her head to the side and open wider. There's the flash of her tongue, pressing for more and Poe groans—  
  
—then rears back, laughing. "Augh, I'm sorry, I can't, I can't! It feels like kissing my sister, I'm so sorry."  
  
Finn makes a disappointed noise. Rey looks put out, not to mention flushed. "What about him?" she asks, again nudging your shoulder. It stings to be handled so carelessly by her, but Finn's hands--moving up and down your thigh—are a soothing counterpoint.  
  
Poe's face lights up. It's a different kind of shock to find yourself the center of that regard. "Ah," Poe says. "That I know I can do."  
  
He moves closer, walking on his knees and grinning. It should look awkward, even foolish, but you find yourself transfixed. Like a mouse frozen before a cat despite being twice the cat's size.  
  
"Okay?" Poe says again, but this time it is definitely a question.  
  
You stare up at him, still frozen.  
  
Rey answers for you. "He says yes. You were his first crush, when he was little. You came with your mother to their house—or I think it was a house, it might have been a base. But he saw you, and you were his first."  
  
Poe looks at Rey, then at you. "Well," he says softly and runs his knuckles down the side of your face. "How about that."

He leans down and it’s an agony. It’s Ben rising up in teenaged wailing, wanting some kind of reality to match his masturbatory fantasies; it’s Kylo swelling to grasp at any fleeting memory of human warmth, because Poe is nothing but _human_ , so warm and so slick and so filling. He presses down on you with one hand around your throat and his tongue in your mouth, and you can’t do anything but give yourself up to him.

Distantly, you hear Rey’s voice in a slightly too-familiar sing-song: “Po-oe, Finn is touch-ing himself!”

“Gah,” Finn says behind you. There’s a sharp movement against your hip, like a hand jerking back from a hot engine part. “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry! Sir. Ma’am. I didn’t mean to.”

Poe breaks from your mouth but only by a few inches, far enough to say against your lips, “That dick is my property, buddy. Don’t be mishandling my property.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Okay,” Poe says. You open your eyes far enough to see his eyes, dark with desire and warmth. He grins again and touches his knuckles to your cheekbone. “Little Ben Organa.”

And there is the drop, the fall, the horrible plummet back to the ground. You are Ben. Ben betrayed his mother, went to the Dark Side, became the slave and servant of Snoke, killed hundreds of innocent people, killed his father—

The ground is there but you are somehow scooped up. Cradled. Held.

“That’s not his name,” a voice says. Rey. Harder than durasteel, than anything. “He’s not—he can’t be that person.”

You’re blind, still recovering from the freefall, but you hear Poe: “I’m not calling him Kylo Ren.”

“No. He’s not that, either.”

Two hands on your hip and back, holding your body steadier than either of them. “Then what do we call him?” Finn asks.

A pause. You wait, with the other two.

“Ani,” she answers.

“Ani,” she says, leaning in close to your ear, speaking it into your very soul. “It was the name of a slave boy.”


End file.
